Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Pepsi to Team Up with Amazon for Superbowl MP3 Giveaway?
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
iTunes and Coca-Cola ran a similar campaign this past summer in Japan.
I bought 30 bottles of Coke and won a grand total of 3 iTunes download codes.
You didn't tip the bottles and check the caps before you bought them lol. I bought 65 bottles of pepsi the last time they had the promo, 64 were winners.. the 1 was because I was in a hurry... I can't imagine how I won all of those... lol
So true.
Anyways, 1 Billion songs!?! If the average song is between 8 and 10 megabytes, then Amazon will have to serve up 8-10 thousand terabytes of data! I wonder how many people will actually download the song they've won.
What bothers me most is the power that Wal-Mart has in dictating how they want to do business. Apple always gets the flogging because of it's "closed" system and how they have too much influence over the music industry. Now here is Wal-Mart telling them how they are going to do business.
If I were the record labels I think I would be more concerned with Wal-Mart.
For established artist like the Eagles, they can just side-step the record labels and go to Wal-Mart for a distribution deal.
If I were the record labels I think I would be more concerned with Wal-Mart.
For established artist like the Eagles, they can just side-step the record labels and go to Wal-Mart for a distribution deal.
It has as much to do with Macs as Universal threatening to pull their catalog from iTunes, as much to do with Macs as Steve Jobs writing an open letter advocating DRM free music, as much to do with Macs as Adobe Creative Suite pricing plans, as much to do with Macs as Al Gore winning a Nobel Prize.
I complain when I see ads disguised as articles, but at least the Macrumors guys try to cover a broad spectrum of Apple related, let me say that again, Apple related events.
Maybe this is lost on me but haven't you always been able to drag and drop mp3s into iTunes or does Amazon do something different?
No. Flat wrong. I'm not even going to get into examples.
I'm sick of this argument. Buy vinyl if you want super high audio fidelity.
You would be right, if there was Wal-Tunes which only worked with the Wal-Pod.
But Wal-Mart is probably thinking wmas don't work with iPods, as far as I know, so why would anyone buy that?
And why don't these companies ever team up with Poland Spring or something so I can buy some water and get free tunes instead of blasted soda all the time.
Apple now offers some music, mostly by the EMI record label, that are now DRM free and will play on anything that can play AAC audio files (other music players, phones, etc.). Those DRM free AAC files are at 256 kbps verses the DRM protected audio files at 128 kbps. When the DRM free songs first came out, they were $1.29 a song. They are all now the 99 cents per song, the same as the DRM protected, a pretty good deal considering the quality verses MP3.
Amazon has a download manager application that handles downloading your songs/albums that import them automatically into iTunes.
So basically, you click buy song on their site, and it shows up in iTunes after it downloads.
arn
Amazon is a great store, but i really only like buying albums from it. I don't know why but I just prefer the organization of the iTMS for singles...
I'm all for this however I LOATH MP3. Mainly because AAC IMHO sounds better and it also allows you to have the coverart contained IN the file vs. MP3 that has it as a sep file. 1 file vs. 2 files. Kinda a no brainer on which is better. Now if Amazon offered AAC as a download option.....I'd be all over that.
Just to ram the point home: THIS NEWS HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH APPLE!
How the hell do you think that Apple has survived and finally cracked the mass market again?
iTunes and the iPod, of course.
If it wasn't for the brilliant iPod, you might not have a Mac at all.
The music biz is totally fragmenting and hopefully it will bring good things....
Time for Apple to start signing contracts with bands to sell their music?
How the hell do you think that Apple has survived and finally cracked the mass market again?
iTunes and the iPod, of course.
If it wasn't for the brilliant iPod, you might not have a Mac at all.
The music biz is totally fragmenting and hopefully it will bring good things....
Time for Apple to start signing contracts with bands to sell their music?
well, that's thwarted Universal's plans!! - another bloody download giant to contend with!!!
"another pesky varmit music download service that I must destroy...wwahahha why won't they listen."
It's frankly hilarious...I should expect Creepy Steve Balmer and Universal to do some shady deal and go 'Zune Exclusive'...
Meanwhile Steve Jobs is stood in Apple HQ looking at the Rev 1.0 demo for Iphone Two with a HUGE grin on his face, nodding his head thinking about all the extra iTunes downloads they will get once they launch the Iphone Application Store;
"3G, integrated GPS (with Apple 'best in class' Sat Nav package), double battery life, and best of all Gen II of the Touch OSX!!- all managed with iTunes!...oh and did I mention an e-reader package and an edge to edge 250ppi screen (home button doubled as on/off and (long hold) on the top)"
"another pesky varmit music download service that I must destroy...wwahahha why won't they listen."
It's frankly hilarious...I should expect Creepy Steve Balmer and Universal to do some shady deal and go 'Zune Exclusive'...
Meanwhile Steve Jobs is stood in Apple HQ looking at the Rev 1.0 demo for Iphone Two with a HUGE grin on his face, nodding his head thinking about all the extra iTunes downloads they will get once they launch the Iphone Application Store;
"3G, integrated GPS (with Apple 'best in class' Sat Nav package), double battery life, and best of all Gen II of the Touch OSX!!- all managed with iTunes!...oh and did I mention an e-reader package and an edge to edge 250ppi screen (home button doubled as on/off and (long hold) on the top)"
Now if only Amazon made this an international market we'd really be getting somewhere. I can't stand this US-only crap.
At > 200 kbps it doesn't matter if it's MP3, AAC, OGG or whatever, if it is done with a decent encoder you won't hear any difference.
That works with any MP3, too.
for the entire digital music industry way to bite the hand that fed you. i pretty much want to boycott most mainstream music anyhow but this just gets under my skin. without apple napster (the old school) would still be the prevalent way of distribution of digital music. Apple should just become a label (or buy out apple corps) and be done with it. the music labels just dont get it. grr i have very little faith in corporate america right now. come to think of it, i pretty much have little faith in all of america right now. well that's cheerful thoughts on my way to work.
On the surface this looks good for consumers, more choice, price wars, competition, etc.
But the reason the record execs are doing it is it will help break up Apple's quasi-monopoly on digital distribution, and that monopoly is what's been thwarting the content owner's monopoly-control over prices (charging more for new releases, etc). Once there are multiple competing channels for content distribution, won't we just get the record industry monopoly (who own big % of the product) dictating prices again, as was the case with CDs?
The consumers (and artists?) won't really win until you de-centralize marketshare of the distributors, AND ownership of the music to be sold. ie: when artists are selling direct to consumers, as is starting to happen (see Radiohead). Then you have real "price wars" and fewer middlemen to take a cut from artists.
But the reason the record execs are doing it is it will help break up Apple's quasi-monopoly on digital distribution, and that monopoly is what's been thwarting the content owner's monopoly-control over prices (charging more for new releases, etc). Once there are multiple competing channels for content distribution, won't we just get the record industry monopoly (who own big % of the product) dictating prices again, as was the case with CDs?
The consumers (and artists?) won't really win until you de-centralize marketshare of the distributors, AND ownership of the music to be sold. ie: when artists are selling direct to consumers, as is starting to happen (see Radiohead). Then you have real "price wars" and fewer middlemen to take a cut from artists.
On the file format issue. I'm all for AAC. The trouble is that most cell phones, music players, besides the ipod do not support it - from what I've seen. So Amazon is not motivated to carry it if MP3 remains the 'universally playable' standard.
If Apple had licensed Fairplay (DRM'd AAC) to other sellers, then device makers would have had much more motivation to support AAC, and it might be the universal standard today. Instead Apple opted to keep their ipod-itunes lock-in, rather than promote AAC as a format.
I'm not saying this was bad or wrong, but it was a choice. Granted that device makers could have still supported AAC as an open format that's superior to MP3, but without any real financial reason to, and since Apple was not playing fair they didn't...
Lets just hope Amazon is successful enough to begin to offer different file formats, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
If Apple had licensed Fairplay (DRM'd AAC) to other sellers, then device makers would have had much more motivation to support AAC, and it might be the universal standard today. Instead Apple opted to keep their ipod-itunes lock-in, rather than promote AAC as a format.
I'm not saying this was bad or wrong, but it was a choice. Granted that device makers could have still supported AAC as an open format that's superior to MP3, but without any real financial reason to, and since Apple was not playing fair
they didn't... Lets just hope Amazon is successful enough to begin to offer different file formats, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
iTunes and Coca-Cola ran a similar campaign this past summer in Japan.
I bought 30 bottles of Coke and won a grand total of 3 iTunes download codes.
I got quite a few songs as luck would have it - including 3 lots of the 5 guaranteed songs per email address (a grand total of 15 songs) that was offered with the specially marked 500 ml bottles - 2 marked bottles were needed for each of the songs, so that was 30 bottles - most donated by co-workers who thankfully drank the Coke and just gave me the bottles! Anyway with an iTunes song priced at either 150 or 200 yen and a 500ml bottle of Coke at 150 yen I guess it wasn't all that bad a deal. Plus I won an additional 6 tracks from these 30 bottles from the standard stickers that were on them. A total of 21 songs from these 30 bottles and 7 more from about 20 other bottles - which I drank unfortunately - but all were diet!
You didn't tip the bottles and check the caps before you bought them lol. I bought 65 bottles of pepsi the last time they had the promo, 64 were winners.. the 1 was because I was in a hurry... I can't imagine how I won all of those... lol
Actually, the codes were inside little stickers on the sides of the bottles and you had to enter the codes into a special Coke home page and it would then tell you if the number was a winner - and you would then receive an email with a verification code you entered into iTunes to add a song credit to your account. A pain in the part of the body you sit on because the code was 9 digits long. You could copy and past the verification code though. Anyway, no way of knowing if hte number was a winner simply by inspecting the bottle.
On the other hand... If Apple, Amazon, Best-Buy, and Wal-mart control 90% of the distribution market (if they don't already...), they could ban together the way the record execs have done in the past, and retain their quasi-monopoly power on distribution and dictate their prices and terms.
In a sense we see Wal-mart doing this to get DRM-free from the labels.
Although, the labels can always set up their own store like lulu.com, and bypass these distributors...
As always, interesting to watch it play out...
In a sense we see Wal-mart doing this to get DRM-free from the labels.
Although, the labels can always set up their own store like lulu.com, and bypass these distributors...
As always, interesting to watch it play out...
I miss the iTunes-Pepsi promotions. I went nuts collecting music from everyone I knew who drank Pepsi those two years. I got 153 songs from those promos.
Pepsi doesn't care about that annual tradition, of course. They are looking for good ways to sell fizzy stuff in plastic bottles, so any dance partner will do. Teaming with Amazon, if it occurs, will be something new, and that phrase helps with publicity.